Peace Corps...
I've spent the past 3 hours or so perusing the Peace Corps website, watching videos and reading journals of previous volunteers (or 'PCV's, as they call themselves). While this is both unhealthy for me (I want to wake up to watch the 7 am Portugal v. Brazil game tomorrow, and then go to EDC) and also quite unhelpful given the fact that I've discerned that every person's experience is wholly different from one another, I still do it.
And I've got to say, it has me absolutely captivated. Even stories of stepping on spiders that explode into millions of baby spiders crawling all over your legs and biting you, or boiling and eating beans with beetles burrowed inside them because that's the only option you've really got haven't been able to scare me off.
There's just something inside me that thinks it would be such. An amazing. Experience. I feel like I'd spend half my time counting down day after painful day but the other half secretly hoping it never ended.
I feel safe, secure when I consider my options here at home--full time job in either the Bay Area or Los Angeles (I have a phone interview on Tuesday!!), family just a 6 hour drive away, friends nearby, the luxury to cook whatever food I want (you better believe I'm having crackers with goat cheese and figs tomorrow (:). Fast internet, access to all sorts of awesome amenities. It's nice. Comforting. I want it.
But when I imagine going to the Peace Corps, I want it too--but for a totally different reason. Thinking of being in the Peace Corps makes me frightened. It twists my guts into tight little knots, makes me want to puke and squee at the same time. It makes me hopeful, excited, exhilarated. It makes my heart beat faster and my palms sweat just a little bit. It makes me sad, for all the changes that would happen in the 27 months that I'd be gone. And, weirdly enough, it makes me yearn for it--the strangeness, the discomfort, the fright and disgust and unsettling feeling of not quite belonging. I've NEVER wanted that before.
And this is all before I've even submitted my application.
I've called a few people, asked if they'll write my letters of recommendation (1 from an employer, 1 from a volunteer supervisor, 1 from a friend), but I've yet to submit. I think I've decided I'm going to, though.
Scary.
I need sleep. I'm going to let my subconscious deal with this for the next 5 1/2 hours or so. Night, interwebs. ♥
And I've got to say, it has me absolutely captivated. Even stories of stepping on spiders that explode into millions of baby spiders crawling all over your legs and biting you, or boiling and eating beans with beetles burrowed inside them because that's the only option you've really got haven't been able to scare me off.
There's just something inside me that thinks it would be such. An amazing. Experience. I feel like I'd spend half my time counting down day after painful day but the other half secretly hoping it never ended.
I feel safe, secure when I consider my options here at home--full time job in either the Bay Area or Los Angeles (I have a phone interview on Tuesday!!), family just a 6 hour drive away, friends nearby, the luxury to cook whatever food I want (you better believe I'm having crackers with goat cheese and figs tomorrow (:). Fast internet, access to all sorts of awesome amenities. It's nice. Comforting. I want it.
But when I imagine going to the Peace Corps, I want it too--but for a totally different reason. Thinking of being in the Peace Corps makes me frightened. It twists my guts into tight little knots, makes me want to puke and squee at the same time. It makes me hopeful, excited, exhilarated. It makes my heart beat faster and my palms sweat just a little bit. It makes me sad, for all the changes that would happen in the 27 months that I'd be gone. And, weirdly enough, it makes me yearn for it--the strangeness, the discomfort, the fright and disgust and unsettling feeling of not quite belonging. I've NEVER wanted that before.
And this is all before I've even submitted my application.
I've called a few people, asked if they'll write my letters of recommendation (1 from an employer, 1 from a volunteer supervisor, 1 from a friend), but I've yet to submit. I think I've decided I'm going to, though.
Scary.
I need sleep. I'm going to let my subconscious deal with this for the next 5 1/2 hours or so. Night, interwebs. ♥